John MacDonald: What needs to happen with public transport?

Author: John MacDonald,
Publish Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2026, 10:21am

Follow the podcast on

What do you think needs to happen with public transport?

According to some, we need to get more people using it. For all the usual reasons: less cars on the road. Lower emmissions. All of that.

Which is why Labour has come up with this election policy which, for those of us in the greater Christchurch area, would mean paying no more than $20-a-week to take as many bus rides and ferry rides as we like.

National’s responded with its own idea. But I think they’re both flogging a dead horse.

At the bus interchange in Christchurch yesterday, people were saying they liked the sound of Labour’s policy.

The same with people using the Diamond Harbour ferry. Bring it on, was their reaction. But no surprises there.

Because, you ask anyone if they want to pay less for something and, of course, they’ll say yes. Which is what this policy would mean.

At the moment, Christchurch public transport users pay a maximum of $30-a-week. Labour is pledging to take that down to no more than $20-a-week.

And, being election year, the government has responded straight away with its own idea. An idea that it, obviously, didn’t think was worth including in the budget a couple of weeks ago.

Nevertheless, today we’ve got transport minister Chris Bishop saying the government could take $450 million from its emergency fund to put more buses on during peak periods.

His thinking is that, if more taxpayer money is going to go into public transport, then it should be spent on improving services - instead of providing subsidies.

But, do you know what I think?

I think we could throw as much money as we want at public transport and it wouldn’t make much difference.

I think National’s idea is better than Labour’s. But I don't think either of them would achieve much.

Not to mention the fact that taking $450 million out of the government’s emergency fund to spend on public transport would be a very risky thing to do.

And this is coming from someone who uses public transport at least a couple of times a week.

I don’t use buses to get to work. So I’m not on them every day. But, here in Christchurch, buses can be a great way of getting around.

But, the thing is, there are two types of people in this world and I don’t see any political party policy changing the way these people behave.

The first type are the ones who have probably always used public transport and always will. They’re already taking the bus now and don’t need any encouragement to continue. Yes, they’ll like the idea of paying less. But they’re converts already.

Then you’ve got the people who have always seen the bus as the loser cruiser and there’s no way in hell they would start using buses just because it’s cheaper.

So that’s why Labour’s idea isn’t going to work.

As for Chris Bishop’s idea of dipping into the emergency fund to put more buses on. I don’t see that shifting the dial, either.

Because we would need to spend way more than $450 million to have a public transport system that the non-users would even think about using.

People would only buy into it if we had services like you have overseas in countries with way more people than us.

Trains, trams, buses and ferries that run day and night - pretty much whenever you need them.

That would be the gamechanger. But we’re dreaming if we think anything like that is achievable here.

So my advice to the politicians is this: don’t think throwing money at public transport is going to get more people using it. It’s not worth the money and effort.

LISTEN ABOVE